


Dirty Business

by sarahenany



Category: I Spy (1965)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 14:32:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahenany/pseuds/sarahenany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of "Cops and Robbers", Scotty and Kelly return to the hotel room and hash it out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dirty Business

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lamardeuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamardeuse/gifts).



The hotel room door closed behind him and Kelly, with a muffled, anticlimactic snick rather than a dramatically appropriate echoing boom. Neverthless, Scotty had to quash the irrational urge to turn and bolt right out again.

The room felt huge, like he'd bought it in the wrong size. It felt like a cavernous hall, like a courthouse. _You feel like you're still waiting on judgment, Alexander. Kelly forgave you, bless his loving soul, but you just can't get over that low-down stunt you pulled. Mom taught you better than that._

But that was just it: If it didn't beat all, Mom – _Mom – his own mother -_ had been in here, rifling through their drawers, she'd confessed tearfully. Betrayal. Smile in your face, swipe the microfilm behind your back. His own mother. His own _mother._ What the _heck_ was this business, anyway? He'd known it was a dirty job, but what did it do to people that the rot had crept into his own childhood home? Kelly'd been right when he'd said they poisoned everything they touched.

Scotty jerked. Kelly was in his face, not quite touching, but close enough to breathe his air. "Penny for your thoughts, Chauncey," he said, tone light, voice dark. "Can hear the wheels turning."

The proximity of Kelly felt too much like relief, like he wanted to grab Kel and hang on and tell him to get out of this business _now this very minute_ and open up a restaurant together, or move to Acapulco, or anything, any old thing, it didn't matter, just as long as they were far away from this stinking job where even his own _mother_ would betray him, but Scotty didn't begin to deserve that, not after today, not after _he,_ Scotty, had betrayed his partner, stabbed him in the back. So he turned away.

Room was too big, too darn big, why did they make hotel rooms this big, anyway, but not big enough to keep Kelly from following him, close, real close. Heck of a thing to follow him around after he'd— "Quit crowding me, man." He didn't even know what he was saying, but it didn't make a darn bit of difference him turning away because with that darned catlike grace, Kelly was in his face _again._

"There are some things," Kelly began, "a man must—"

"A man must shut up. What's a fella got to do to get some privacy around here?" Scotty muttered half-heartedly. The wall was to his back, so he leaned back against it, looking at the carpet. He'd looked at the carpet today, as he was figuring out the best way to get around Kelly. As he was figuring out how to… Darn it all, anyway.

"A man has got," Kelly was saying smoothly, voice urbane and dark, "to be _honest_ with one's partner, you observe, sir, and just come out and say he is guilt-tripping."

Scotty glared at the carpet. It was plug-ugly. Hotels in Philly were going downhill. "Give me one good reason why I should not be guilt-tripping." He wanted to look up, couldn't quite manage it, and raised his eyes to Kelly's collarbone. "Give me one good reason why I should not be guilt-tripping, and I will award you th—"

"You," Kelly cut him off, sharply, "are the one cat who's never stabbed me in the back."

Something clicked out of place, and Scotty lifted his eyes to Kelly's. "Hang that on me again, man. What did you say?"

Kelly's eyes were still dark, his voice still crushed velvet, but his tone was firm, commanding, even. "Don't feign deafness, sir, it doesn't become you."

Scotty opened his mouth, shocked into silence, then closed it again. Finally, he settled for  a huff of bitter laughter. You got a funny way definition of that, man."

"I know," Kelly said, "of what I speak."

"Is that so?" Scotty felt his indignation begin to rise. "So, just what did you call today? I betrayed you, pure and simple. I—"

"You didn't hit me in the back of the neck."

Scotty's mouth fell open, the wind dropped out of his sails. He knew exactly what Kel meant.

"Starting to get it now?" Kelly folded his arms, fixing Scotty with that level, challenging hazel gaze, daring him to deny it, to make light of it. And Scotty couldn't.

He and Kelly were trained the same, fought the same, same skills, same techniques. Scotty had stood there, right behind Kelly, as the man had bent, head bowed over his suitcase. He'd stood there looking at Kelly, thinking how, in another time, he might have slipped his hands under his sweater, pushed it up to expose Kelly's smooth back, kissed him. But this time he'd only stared at Kelly, bent over, and assessed him as he'd assess an enemy in an ambush. He'd seen the back of the white neck exposed, vertebrae shifting slightly under the skin as Kelly moved. He'd seen, in sharpened adrenaline-fueled focus, the graduation of Kelly's hair as it grew shorter towards the back, the shorter hairs giving way to peach fuzz dusting the skin, the tan line between back of neck and shirt collar, where sun-darkened skin shifted into paler gold. He could have raised a hand to strike – Kelly had been in perfect position. Could have snapped his neck from that angle, or induced unconsciousness with a precise blow with the heel of his hand. Lord knew, he was trained to.

But he couldn't. In the end, he'd just stood there, and stood there, and stood there some more. And _then_ he'd walked all the way round to the _front_ of Kelly, like a danged amateur, to punch him in the face instead.

Because he couldn't stab Kelly in the back. And Kelly had known it.

Shaking his head slightly, Scotty looked Kelly full in the face. Kelly's eyes were dark, but there was a quiet warmth in them, and his mouth was curved up into the shadow of a smile. "The one cat," Kelly murmured, "who could never stab me in the back."

"Unless…" Scotty found Kelly moving closer, and closed the distance between them, not touching yet, not quite able to, nothing but his lips meeting Kelly's, soft and welcoming. "Unless…" he murmured against Kelly's mouth, reaching out for his shoulders, gripping on like a lifeline, feeling Kelly's hands wrap around his elbows, tight, "unless, that is, we take a more, um, vernacular meaning of the phrase, y'see," Scotty muttered.

"Well," Kelly grinned against Scotty's mouth, his voice a deep, knife-edged baritone vibrating against Scotty's chest, "I wish you would."

"Kiss me, Kate, and let's to bed," Scotty said softly, then improvised, "there to _lay_ my weary _head."_

"Such language." Kelly gave a soft chuckle. "What would your mother say?"

Ice spilled down Scotty's body. His own mother. His own _mother._ He stiffened, he couldn't help it—

But Kelly just held on, words a breath against Scotty's cheek. "She knew you could take care of yourself. You'd have done the same."

Scotty shook his head. "My own mother, Jack."

"Dirty business," Kelly said, flat. "Occupational hazard."

"We didn't—"

"Not _us,"_ Kelly cut him off. _"Her."_

Scotty took a step back, feeling his brow contort into shapes not intended by nature. His mouth was just forming the O shape of a _What?_ perhaps followed by _You calling my mother a secret agent, Jack?_ when Kelly cut him smoothly off. "Motherhood's a hell of a dirty job, man. She knew the risks when she decided on being a mom."

Scotty did make a sound then, but Kelly sailed on, ignoring Scotty's open-mouthed stare. "Right on." His mouth was quirked, his voice warm. "Dirty job, motherhood. Sacrifice everything, sacrifice your very _country_ to make sure your kids are okay. Do wrong by the kid who can take care of himself, just so's you can do right by your little girl, y'see, being held hostage in the bedroom with some stranger. Really, Chauncey, you of all people should have more respect for such a difficult and dangerous profession."

Warmth welled up in Scotty's heart, making him lightheaded. "I should, huh?"

"Certainly you should."

"Dirty job," he said softly, stepping so close to Kelly that their bodies were touching.  

"Yeah." Kelly grinned, and moved in for another cheerful smooch. "Hey, _somebody's_ gotta do it."

"Darn tootin'." Scotty let his lips linger on Kel's, dizzy with gratitude and warm sweet relief, wondering at this crazy cat who thought so little of himself, who had the power to set everything in the whole wide world right with a touch, with a word. He would have told Kelly _You're something else, you know that, man?_ if that wouldn't have been a one-way ticket to a full-fledged You-don't-know-the-lousy-things-I've-done Robinson sobfest. _No,_ he thought, deepening the kiss, _the best way to compliment ol' Kel is to do it backhandedly._

 _Or,_ he thought abstractedly as they moved towards the bed, _backstabbedly. If it wasn't a word, it sure is, now._


End file.
